A handful of readers felt Jack's loyalties still remained with the University of Michigan, where he was an assistant coach under Bo Schembechler from 1973-1979, during his tenure at WMU.

Jack Harbaugh left Michigan to become the defensive coordinator at Stanford from 1980-81. He was a first-time head coach at WMU from 1982-86. John Harbaugh joined the staff in 1984.

Under Jack's guidance, WMU went 25-27-2 (19-22-3 in the Mid-American Conference). He had two winning seasons, with a 7-2-2 mark in 1982 and a 6-5 record in 1983. His best finish in the MAC came in his first year when the Broncos went 5-2-2 and finished second.

During Jack's tenure at Western Michigan, his younger son Jim was playing quarterback at the University of Michigan from 1983-86.

Great family? Ask the Broncos who played for the Harbaughs. He was ruthless, one his last recruiting classes took WMU to the Cal Bowl in '88 after Molde finally was hired. The kid was always preaching "Michigan this" "Michigan that" to the Bronco players. Word is one OL finally cornered him and with strong words reminded him this wasn't Ann Arbor..

In an email to the Kalamazoo Gazette an MLive reader, who asked to be identified as a WMU graduate, described Jack Harbaugh as a man who had all the tools to be successful but he had too many distractions at WMU.

The reader recalled one game in 1985 when the Broncos entered halftime with a lead and was feeding off the positive energy.

"The team came into
the locker room sky high with emotion," the reader recalled in his email. "Jack came in a screamed at them to 'Sit down, Shut Up, and save it for the 2nd half.' He then went into
the training room and turned on the radio to listen to the UofM game in which
Jim was playing.

"In 1986 (the year
Jack was fired) the joke among the team was that the head set Jack wore on the
sideline was a radio tuned into the UofM game."

RumpAgePhil chimed in with a long-winded response about Jack Harbaugh:

The Harbaugh's are a clan, you gotta keep that in mind when dealing with them. Western fired Jack for non-performance, but got bad mouthed by Jim and John following it. That's typical of the Harbaughs.

Jack was more interested in Jim playing starting QB at UM than he was in his team at Western-this is from guys who played for him. Jack considered WMU and the MAC small time, not up to his 'pedigree' in the Big 10. He once commented how it would be 'fine' for the MAC to drop from Div1A to Div 1AA-this at a time when the MAC schools were fighting to retain Div 1A status. He was disciplined for strong-arming a grounds keeper out of Waldo when the guy was trying to do his job. It has been alleged that Harbaugh-a devout Roman Catholic-gave preferential treatment and playing time to players who shared his Faith or came from the Catholic HS system. During the build up to a big seasonal matchup with CMU Harbaugh claimed he 'knew' which of the Chips two QB's were going to start that saturday (one had been slighly injured the prior game)-and had his defense prepare for the passing QB. CMU head coach Deromedi commented, 'I'm glad Jack knows, because I don't know!'. WMU was upset in the contest when CMU started the QB who was a better runner and he ripped off big yards. Jack commented after the loss, 'They didn't start the QB we thought they would!'. Uh huh, Jack. Harbaugh went 7-2-2, 6-5, 5-6, 4-6-1 and 3-8 in 5 seasons, got continually out-recruited by CMU-amongst others-and in general didn't meet standards set out for him. Then bitterly whined when he got the axe-along with his sons. Jim and John may be smart coaches, but they're a chip of the old block when it comes to having no class

Despite the negative feelings about Jack Harbaugh, MLive reader Bud still felt the Harbaugh connection is an interesting piece of WMU history:

Now that we have confirmed the coaching dates, I believe it's a nice part of our football history that the Harbaugh's coached at Western Michigan.

What are your thoughts about Jack Harbaugh's tenure at Western Michigan? Let the debate continue: